Format Paperback Subject Business Economics Economics Publisher Oxford University Press USA

America by Design: Science, Technology, and the Rise of Corporate Capitalism

Business & Money

Noble, David F.

Economics

Oxford University Press

Focusing on the postwar automation of the American metal-working industry--the heart of the modern industrial economy--this is a provocative study of how automation has assumed a critical role in America. David Noble argues that industrial automation--more than merely a technological advance--is a social process that reflects very real divisions and pressures within our society. The book explains how technology is often spurred and shaped by the military, corporations, universities, and other mighty institutions. Using detailed case studies, Noble also demonstrates how engineering design is influenced by political, economic, and sociological considerations, and how the deployment of equipment is frequently entangled with certain managerial concerns.

Forces of Production: A Social History of Industrial Automation

History

Historical Study & Educational Resources

Why is it that Western science evolved as a thoroughly male-dominated enterprise? As philosopher Sandra Harding has noted, "women have been more systematically excluded from doing serious science than performing any other social activity except, perhaps, frontline warfare." In A World Without Women, David F. Noble provides the first full-scale investigation of the origins and implications of the masculine culture of Western science and technology, and in the process offers some surprising revelations. Noble begins by showing that, contrary to the widely held notion that the culture of learning in the West has always excluded women--an assumption that rests largely upon the supposed legacy of ancient Greece--men did not thoroughly dominate intellectual life until the beginning of the second millennium of the Christian era. At this time science and the practices of higher learning became the exclusive province of the newly celibate Christian clergy, whose ascetic culture denied women a place in any scholarly enterprise. By the twelfth century, papal reform movements had all but swept away the material and ideological supports of future female participation in the world of learning; as never before, women were on the outside looking in. Noble further demonstrates that the clerical legacy of a world without women remained more or less intact through the Reformation, and permeated the emergant culture of science. A World Without Women finally points to a dread of women at the core of modern scientific and technological enterprise, as these disciplines work to deprive one-half of humanity of its role in production (as seen in the Industrial Revolution's male appropriation of labor) and reproduction as well (the age-old quest for an artificial womb). It also makes plain the hypocrisy of a community that can honor a female scientist with a bronze bust, as England's Royal Society did for Mary Somerville in the mid-nineteenth century, yet deny her entry to the very meeting hall in which it enjoyed pride of place. An important and often disturbing book, A World Without Women is essential reading for anyone concerned not only about the world of science, but about the world that science has made.

A World Without Women: The Christian Clerical Culture of Western Science

World

KNOPF

Discusses defensive bidding, takeout doubles, overcalls, auctions, direct-cue bids and other aspects of bridge strategy

Forces of Production

A history of women in Western science traces the absence of women from the realm of science to a deep-rooted legacy of male-dominated Western religious community, showing how the view of science as sacred served to exclude women.

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Introduces the Chessmaster computer chess program, describes how to prepare for games on all levels of difficulty, and discusses the basics of chess as they apply to the Chessmaster

Master the Chessmaster

Computers & Technology

Games & Strategy Guides

Hayden Books

Arguing against the widely held belief that technology and religion are at war with each other, David F. Noble's groundbreaking book reveals the religious roots and spirit of Western technology. It links the technological enthusiasms of the present day with the ancient and enduring Christian expectation of recovering humankind's lost divinity. Covering a period of a thousand years, Noble traces the evolution of the Western idea of technological development from the ninth century, when the useful arts became connected to the concept of redemption, up to the twentieth, when humans began to exercise God-like knowledge and powers. Noble describes how technological advance accelerated at the very point when it was invested with spiritual significance. By examining the imaginings of monks, explorers, magi, scientists, Freemasons, and engineers, this historical account brings to light an other-worldly inspiration behind the apparently worldly endeavors by which we habitually define Western civilization. Thus we see that Isaac Newton devoted his lifetime to the interpretation of prophecy. Joseph Priestley was the discoverer of oxygen and a founder of Unitarianism. Freemasons were early advocates of industrialization and the fathers of the engineering profession. Wernher von Braun saw spaceflight as a millenarian new beginning for humankind. The narrative moves into our own time through the technological enterprises of the last half of the twentieth century: nuclear weapons, manned space exploration, Artificial Intelligence, and genetic engineering. Here the book suggests that the convergence of technology and religion has outlived its usefulness, that though it once contributed to human well-being, it has now become a threat to our survival. Viewed at the dawn of the new millennium, the technological means upon which we have come to rely for the preservation and enlargement of our lives betray an increasing impatience with life and a disdainful disregard for mortal needs. David F. Noble thus contends that we must collectively strive to disabuse ourselves of the inherited religion of technology and begin rigorously to re-examine our enchantment with unregulated technological advance.

The Religion of Technology: The Divinity of Man and the Spirit of Invention

Americas

Progress Without People: Automation and Job Killing in a Market Society

Miles & Miles

Using Wordperfect in Your Job Search/Windows, DOS Versions 5.0-6.1

Management & Leadership

Jist Works

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Noble, David F.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Noble, David F.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Noble, David F.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

America by Design: Science, Technology, and the Rise of Corporate Capitalism

Forces of Production: A Social History of Industrial Automation

A World Without Women: The Christian Clerical Culture of Western Science

America by Design: Science, Technology, and the Rise of Corporate Capitalism

Forces of Production

A World Without Women: The Christian Clerical Culture of Western Science

Master the Chessmaster

The Religion of Technology: The Divinity of Man and the Spirit of Invention

Progress Without People: Automation and Job Killing in a Market Society

Using Wordperfect in Your Job Search/Windows, DOS Versions 5.0-6.1